RAGBRAI news team

Memories of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa tend to melt into one continuous blur of hills and pork and sweaty spandex. And after 42 years, each ride can seem pretty much like the one before — except when they don’t.

The Register’s Kyle Munson and Michael Morain compiled this list of the Top 10 highlights that distinguished this ride from all the others. These are the “Remember when . . .” stories riders will swap when they regroup for next year’s route-announcement party in January 2015.

The Emmetsburg headwind. The proudly Irish town in Palo Alto County put its own twist on that old Irish blessing about the road rising up to meet you and the wind being always at your back. Bikers pedaled south into a punishing headwind on the way into town Monday, then north into the wind on the same road the next morning. Maybe it was a leprechaun’s curse. Photos: Into Emmetsburg | Leaving Emmetsburg

Mr. Pork Chop homecoming. Famed RAGBRAI food vendor Paul “Mr. Pork Chop” Bernhard, who retired from the road in 2008 to let his son take over bicycling’s iconic pit stop for carnivores, reveled in the chance to greet his fans one more time. Tuesday’s route stopped halfway in Bernhard’s hometown of Bancroft, where the gleefully irreverent Mr. Chop sat in the park gazebo downtown and traded one-liners with a continuous procession of bicyclists. Even Armstrong dropped by to pay tribute. Celebrating a legend in Bancroft

The rowdy beach wedding. Since Gretchen Imhoff and Brian Denney courted on bicycles and more or less fell in love on RAGBRAI, a two-wheeled wedding with all their Team Waldo friends seemed like the natural choice. So the happy couple pedaled their way to Clear Lake, circled around a shopping cart full of beer beneath a shade tree, and finally became a symbolic tandem on the beach as RAGBRAI Nation cheered them on.

A different kind of Music Man. Who knows what Meredith Willson would have thought of Poison frontman Bret Michaels’ concert in Mason City, but riders and locals showed up in full force to see the rocker do his thing Wednesday night. Opening act Warrant performed well but failed to make the obvious RAGBRAI joke about their biggest hit, “Cherry Pie.” 28 photos: Bret Michaels in Mason City

RAGBRAI remembers. Riders wore hundreds of pairs of red- and blue-striped socks Friday in honor of late RAGBRAI stalwart Carter LeBeau. That was just one collective visible sign of how this bicycle ride as it ages has taken pains to pay tribute to the characters that helped establish it. RAGBRAI pedals ever forward but doesn’t forget to honor and memorialize its colorful past. Story: Riding to remember

Hellish hills. Unlike Friday’s rain, everybody saw this one coming: Saturday’s rippling river valley between Independence and Guttenberg was mountainous compared to the table-flat farmland of northwest Iowa. Many riders ended up walking the worst hills or paused to slump on the roadside, nursing a freshly squeezed limeade. Entire Amish families sat on their front lawns and gazed at the struggling bicyclists with what could have been bemused expressions. Photos from Saturday

RAGBRAI director TJ Juskiewicz annouces the 2015 overnight towns. Ride will start in Sioux City and end in Davenport.

The Register's Kyle Munson and Michael Morain attempt to get an early look at the 2015 RAGBRAI route

We are excited to reveal our new logo for RAGBRAI XLIII and 2015! If you join us on our ride across the state next year, you’ll be sure to see welcoming Iowans, lots of farmland and… well you’ll just have to watch the video to find out.

Look back on the ride of 2014 in this video highlight reel.

A group of friends from Canada spent the week on RAGBRAI and recount their best moments.

As RAGBRAI XLII comes to an end, friends from California talk about the emotion behind dipping their tires into the Mississippi River at the end of the ride.

Riders react at the Guttenberg dip site.

Riders stopped for photos on a bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi River at Guttenberg.